Trump's DOJ Accused of Blocking State Epstein Investigations

Every witness says ICE lied about the man it killed in Houston, a gay Wyoming Republican is suing his own party for calling him a pedophile, and Trump made it easier to destroy protected habitats

Good afternoon. I’m Ryan Rose, and this is AlterNet America.

New Mexico says the Justice Department has spent 130 days withholding the unredacted Epstein files its investigators need. Every witness in the car with Lorenzo Salgado Araujo says ICE lied about the man they shot dead. A gay Republican running for Wyoming’s only House seat is now suing members of his own party for calling him a pedophile. And the Trump administration just erased the word “harm” from the Endangered Species Act, making it legal to bulldoze a threatened species’ habitat.

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New Mexico Says DOJ Is Blocking Its Epstein Investigation

The Justice Department says it welcomes New Mexico’s Epstein investigation. It has just declined to hand over the files New Mexico needs to conduct it.

New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez accused the U.S. Department of Justice of hindering the state’s probe into Jeffrey Epstein by withholding unredacted files on the late sex offender. The Democratic-run state reopened its investigation in February into Epstein’s former ranch south of Santa Fe, where he is accused of abusing women and girls for nearly three decades.

In a June 30 letter to Acting U.S. Attorney Todd Blanche, Torrez said the department had failed to respond to a February request for unredacted files containing the names of survivors, witnesses, and co-conspirators essential to the investigation. He called the 130-day delay “unreasonable under any rule of reason.”

A Justice Department spokesperson said the agency responded in June, “welcomes” the state’s inquiry into Zorro Ranch, and “stands ready to provide necessary assistance.”

Torrez has spent five months investigating a ranch that’s been sold, crimes that are decades old, and a suspect who’s dead — and somehow the DOJ is still his biggest obstacle.

Every Witness Says ICE Lied About the Man It Killed in Houston

The official ICE story is that a father of three on his way to work decided to weaponize his own vehicle against a car full of federal agents. Every single person who was actually there says that is not what happened.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and father of three, was shot and killed by an ICE agent on Tuesday. ICE said he ignored commands, “weaponized his vehicle,” and tried to run an agent over. The agent claimed self-defense.

The three men in the car with him each told a lawyer, separately, that this was false. “It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over,” said Jose Trinidad Rojas, 51, in a handwritten statement offered to The Washington Post. There were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.

Victor Salgado, the dead man’s brother, said agents began firing from the passenger side, hit his brother in the abdomen, and then mocked him as he bled out: “You wanted to escape, right?”

Video obtained by KHOU 11 shows the agents tried to box the car in with an unmarked black SUV, initiating the whole thing. All four men had lived in the United States for at least two decades. They were arrested and taken into custody shortly after the shooting.

He is the tenth person fatally shot by federal immigration agents since Trump returned to office.

This story exists because a lawyer took handwritten statements from three men in custody, a local TV station obtained video, and a newspaper published what the witnesses said alongside what ICE claimed. That chain is fragile. If you want to make sure someone is still checking the official story against the evidence when the next shooting happens, become a paying subscriber today.

A Gay Wyoming Republican Is Suing His Own Party

He did everything the Wyoming GOP asked except be straight.

Reid Rasner, 42, an out gay man running for Wyoming’s sole House seat, is spending the final stretch of his campaign suing members of his own party for defamation. On Friday he settled one case against an Iowa man who called him a “pedophile” on Facebook. He is pursuing another against a former GOP Wyoming state senator over an alleged whisper campaign.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this in my entire life,” Rasner said. “This just isn’t the Wyoming I knew or thought I knew.”

The rumors started after his TikTok bid. In May, a poll for Secretary of State Chuck Gray’s campaign informed respondents that Rasner had “married his gay husband in New York.” The poll showed his support dropping once voters learned he was gay.

Rasner is not exactly a moderate. He calls gender medicine for children “child abuse,” says parents who allow it should “lose their parental rights,” and made a viral gag video pretending to kick his rival out of a women’s bathroom.

He was also kept out of a forum run by the Wyoming Family Alliance, which opposes same-sex marriage. The group said the exclusion had nothing to do with his sexuality. Sure.

Trump Made It Easier to Destroy Endangered Species’ Habitats

On Friday the Trump administration finalized a rollback of the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act. Destroying an imperiled species’ nest or habitat is no longer illegal unless it’s intentional.

Since 1981, “harm” had been defined to include modifying or degrading a protected species’ habitat. The Fish and Wildlife Service deleted that definition entirely, without replacing it, calling it “an unlawful regulatory intrusion that interfered with private property rights.”

The practical effect: loggers can now cut trees containing the nests of endangered birds, like the northern spotted owl, unless the bird is physically sitting in the tree at the moment of the cut.

Habitat loss is among the primary reasons species become endangered in the first place. The rollback simply removes the part of the law that addressed it, joining a growing list of protections Trump has rolled back. In March, the “God Squad” exempted all Gulf of Mexico oil and gas operations from the ESA, potentially imperiling Rice’s whales and sea turtles.

Industry groups had long asked for exactly this. The National Mining Association complained that habitat rules added “additional time to a lengthy permitting process.” The Center for Biological Diversity plans to sue.

These stories wouldn’t be covered properly by cable channels and newspapers captured by right-wing billionaires. The FCC can threaten a broadcaster’s license. A billionaire can buy a newspaper and gut its opinion section over breakfast. That is the ordinary way American journalism gets quietly bent toward power. None of it works on us, because none of those levers exist here.

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Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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